Monday, August 31, 2009

"My Life" abridged audio version By Bill Clinton

Ever since I heard that President Bill Clinton wrote a book that was just over a thousand pages in length I was curious to find out what all he wrote. Clinton did serve two terms as President pretty much covering the 90s as president.he fought to balance the federal budget, presided over a government shutdown, beat back a conservative cultural backlash, skirmished with an ornery Saddam Hussein, ended a genocidal crisis in Bosnia, accelerated the Mideast peace process until its eventual collapse, and began to deal with the budding threat posed by Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. But what Clinton is most remembered for are the scandals that plagued his efforts. Beginning with Gennifer Flowers in the 1992 campaign, to Whitewater, Travelgate, the FBI file scandal, Paula Jones and ultimately the Monica Lewinsky affair that led to his historic impeachment, Clinton endured what then First Lady Hillary Clinton termed a "vast right-wing conspiracy" to push him from office. So I'm guessing he may have had a lot to say and maybe a thousand pages could be filled.

I then took the easy way out and listened to the the abridged audio version of the book. Usually I steer away from abridged versions of a book but this time I wanted to know but at the same time the size of the book scared me off a bit. I do wish I had read the full version now and will probably be picking up that book sometime soon. But for now I think I got a good insight.

The book does do a great job of covering the decade of the 90s in politics. Many things that went through the White House affected America culturally. This book would be a nice primer when studying history and wanting to tackle the politics of the 90s. Keep in mind this is from one point of view and many of the issues were hard to look at in a black and white view. It was nice however to get his take on many of the scandals and controversies that surrounded his political career.

The book being read by President Clinton himself, seems like that could be the only way. It is nice to hear the emotion in his voice during the reading. Whenever he would talk about Ken Starr you could tell there was a touch of animosity toward Starr. As a piece of history this is a privilege to have a president speak of his presidency and life.

Speaking of Ken Starr, one of the many insights learned in this book I learned was that there was more to Ken Starr than just investigating the Monica Lewinski matter. Ken Starr was doing constantly trying to find bugs in the Clinton White House, and the Lewinski was the only thing he could find that would smear the President.

So, if you are interested in the book but afraid to tackle the full thousand or so pages give the audio book a try, I'm glad I did.